My mom has always been my hero. She saved me, literally, pulling me out of our burning home when I was only two and a half. A PG&E worker came to fix our gas heater in the basement. He accidentally left the gas on, filling the bottom part of the house. When the pilot light touched the gas, the house exploded into flames. I was sleeping in the living room near the front door, and my older sister Carol was sleeping in a back bedroom. I was burned badly. My mom scooped me up and took me outside to safety. She was burned on her forehead, but returned to get my sister. Too late, by the time she reached the bedroom and brought her outside, Carol had died of smoke inhalation.
I didn’t fully appreciate my mom’s bravery until I had children of my own. How awful it must have been to lose her first-born; how incredibly difficult it must have been to live with that loss.
My father, who had been working in San Francisco the day of the fire, blamed himself for not being home. He returned to a mental hospital soon after the fire, leaving my mom to care for me.
I spent six weeks in the hospital, bandaged from head to toe. My mom used to laugh describing me, "You only had a small slit in the bandages for your eyes. We knew you would recover when you were found running all over the hospital, bandages streaming behind you.”
I returned home, my wounds healed. However, I wanted to talk constantly about the details of the fire. I asked where my sister had gone. The doctor reassured my worried mom that talking was the therapy I needed. I recovered fully, enjoying a carefree and happy childhood in Mill Valley. But the marriage did not survive the fire or my father’s mental illness. My mom was alone, raising my younger sister and me.
My mom was a strong person, with a calm demeanor. She wasn’t easily ruffled. I expect having lost a child, the small difficulties of daily life paled in comparison. One of the great gifts she gave us was to put the trials of daily life in perspective, especially in the face of the big issues of life and death. I never saw my mom be petty.
My mom was not a single parent for long. Jim Leonard met my mom at a party in 1961, and they were married in June of 1962. Our family moved from Ethel Avenue to Mirabel Avenue.
My new dad did all the important activities a small boy needed. He taught me baseball and how to ride a bike. We made model airplanes together, and he took me on rainy Boy Scout camping trips.
However, it was my mom who provided moral guidance. She taught me about being kind, especially to the less popular kids in the neighborhood. She made sure that I learned to respect various religious traditions by encouraging me to visit the local churches and synagogues of my friends.
Although Mom did not raise her children in her Jewish tradition, she taught us to recognize the great idea of love in all traditions. Through her daily acts of kindness, she demonstrated that one did not need religious doctrine to practice love. She was known to all for her graciousness. Family and friends spent a lot of time at our kitchen table at Mirabel, mainly to talk with and be near my mom.
My mom also passed on her great love of books. She read to me when I was little. In grade school, she found me books like Jason and the Golden Fleece and King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, sparking my little boy's imagination. In Junior High she suggested Steinbeck, The Red Pony and Of Mice and Men, and London’s Call of the Wild. Thanks to my mom, by high school I was reading late into the night.
She taught us to love books by her example. On most evenings, you could peek into my Dad's home office and see my mom stretched out in the big easy chair reading her latest novel.
My mom was my rudder during difficult teenage years, too. At sixteen I was passionate and opinionated, a real know-it-all. My dad and I went round and round, arguing about the events of the day at the dinner table. He challenged me to provide facts to back up my opinions.
My mom took a different tact. An excellent listener, she often brought up her ideas when the heat of the dispute died down. She preferred the carom shot, not directly challenging me but calmly introducing alternative ideas for me to chew on. She was effective getting through to her intransigent teen.
Mom always seemed wise to me. (Even my dad seemed smarter as I became older.) So, I returned to Mirabel Avenue to discuss all the important decisions of life. We would confer at our kitchen table. Mom would have a cup of coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other. She would listen, and we would talk until I could see my way forward.
I was so grateful that my daughters had a chance to sit on my mom's lap, listening to their grandmother read stories. However, when she was diagnosed with cancer at 70, I wished desperately that each of my girls had more time with her. We were not ready to accept the finality of her diagnosis. But she was tranquil, accepting that her time had come. In the hospital she had pain. Nevertheless, my mom faced her final suffering with dignity, grace, even humor, just as she had lived her life.
My hero saved me. My mom taught me her gospel of love. This is what I hope to pass on to my daughters, their Grandma Fran's great legacy.
— 2009